The Sewers of Paris

My guest this week is documentary filmmaker David Weissman (The Cockettes, We Were Here), who was in exactly the right place at the right time to have a front-row seat to one of the most revolutionary periods in American culture. In fact, he wasn’t just an observer of the Venice Beach LSD scene in the 60s, or of San Francisco’s chaotic drag cauldron in the 70s — he was an active participant, exploring and enjoying an explosion of music, live performance, and a rejection of institutions that once seemed unassailable. My conversation with David delves deep into what it was like to bounce around beach communities, music festivals, and underground theater in California during that time … and he has so many great stories and memories to share that we’re going to be breaking our conversation into multiple parts, with the first coming this week. I hope you’ll find David’s perspective as fascinating as I did.

We’ll have the first half of that conversation in a minute. First, a reminder that I’ve got a book coming out this May about the history of queer characters on sitcoms, from Bewitched to The Golden Girls to Friends, and how the real-life story of queer liberation is told over decades of television comedy. It’s called Hi Honey, I’m Homo, and pre-orders are open — head over to gaysitcoms.com to get all the details. 

And if you like pop culture history, check out my YouTube channel for tales from behind the scenes of iconic movies and TV shows — I just posted a new video about Alfred Hitchcock’s movie Rope, which featured a gay couple as the main characters all the way back in 1948 — unbeknownst to censors, of course. Also unbeknownst were the details of a real life gay love affair going on behind the scenes between the movie’s writer and its star. Check that out at YouTube.com/mattbaume.

And a big thanks to everyone who supports The Sewers of Paris on Patreon! Head over to SewersOfParis.com to support the show, and listen to over 400 past episodes.